Chapter 259 - Caravan (Patreon)

Tucker stood at the edge of the forest into which he’d appeared after his ascension, looking out over the plain. Knee high grass danced in the breeze, and the bright sun hung high in the sky, obscured only by the occasional fluffy white cloud.  By any measure, it was an idyllic scene.

So, why were the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end?

There was danger out there, he was sure of it. The only question was whether or not he could handle it. Kneeling down, Tucker continued to watch, but he saw nothing to either confirm or assuage his fear. By all rights, that should have been comforting. Instead, it was wholly unnerving.

To distract himself from his thoughts, he summoned his status:

{Alchemical Grenadier} was, as far as Tucker could tell, a perfect class for him. Not only had it already given him insight into his path, but it had also enhanced his most vital attributes. Even with a week having passed since his ascension, Tucker was still a little disconcerted by the changes to his status page, and there was no wonder. For the decades he’d been in the Radiant Isles, it had been one way, and now it was different. Still, he couldn’t say that he wasn’t happy with the results – especially considering that his pool of available mana and how quickly that store regenerated had improved by leaps and bounds. In addition, it was nice to see that he was functionally immune to poison and disease, which would make his alchemical research that much easier.

The real benefit, though, was the addition of a new path: Trajectory. It didn’t take him long to figure out its worth, either. Almost as soon as he’d ascended, Tucker had been beset by a trio of overlarge weasels. They were fast and vicious, but he had a grenade that was perfect for that kind of opponent. The [Lethargy Bomb] didn’t do any damage on its own, but when it erupted, it released a cloud of smoke that would make even the most agile creatures seem as if they were running in sand.

He'd begun concocting it soon after seeing what Talia was capable of. Zeke and Abby might’ve been convinced that the undead girl was completely stable, but Tucker knew better. He wanted to be ready in case she decided to exact revenge against the man responsible for her condition.

So, while his preparations had proved unnecessary when it came to Talia, the results had come in very handy when he’d been attacked by the weasels. They’d been slowed to a crawl, and he’d peppered them with a series of [Conflagration Grenades]. Still, they were durable monsters, and his efforts had accomplished little more than forcing them into a retreat.

That’s when his new path showed its worth. He’d wanted to either kill them or frighten them enough that they wouldn’t soon return, so as they ran away, dipping and diving through the forest’s underbrush, he’d aimed a couple of [Kinetic Grenades] in the weasels’ direction. However, the moment he’d cocked back his arm, a new sense had taken hold of him. It was as if his senses had suddenly gone into overdrive, and he knew precisely how to throw the grenade to hit the rapidly retreating little monster. He knew the right velocity. The proper angle.  He even know how the barely perceptible breeze would affect his grenades’ trajectory. It was like the world had suddenly opened up, and now, he saw all of its secrets.

Of course, his arm strength and throwing ability hadn’t really improved, so when he let the grenade loose, it fell short and went wide. That lack had been why he’d always favored more explosive grenades; you didn’t have to be precise when you could bathe a ten-foot radius in liquid fire.

Still, his new Trajectory path had opened a host of options, just like the class he’d chosen. To that end, he focused on the quest he’d have to complete if he wanted a new skill:

Quest Attained! Heal ten (10) mortal wounds via alchemical concoctions. Destroy twenty-five (25) enemies with alchemical concoctions. Reward: Skill [Bombardment]

Tucker was very much interested in that new skill, and not just because it represented a shiny, new toy. Instead, his interested lay in the name. [Bombardment] brought to mind devastating explosions and destroyed fortifications. Attaining that skill had been the other reason he’d tried to kill the weasels.

However, that pursuit would likely prove to be even more difficult than initially expected. After all, if a group of glorified rodents were capable of withstanding his grenades, then what hope did he have of defeating anything bigger or more durable? Still, Tucker had never been the most powerful person around, and he’d spent months surviving the hostile environment of Mal’araxis. If anyone was prepared to set out into a new world, it was him.

The mere thought of the demon realm sent a shiver of Tucker’s spine. During his time there, he’d seen terrible things that he knew would give him nightmares for years to come. Imps torturing one another for fun, eldritch horrors that belied description, and powerful demons that had resulted to cannibalism were just a few of the horrors he’d witnessed. There were more that were bad enough that he’d shunted off into a corner of his mind where he hoped they would stay for the rest of his life.

But the most disturbing aspect of his stay in Mal’araxis was learning that every single demon in that realm had once been a human being. They were the men and women who’d made all the wrong decisions in their previous lives, and they’d been forced to pay the price. Twisted by torture and their own natures, their very existence had been transformed.

It begged the question, though: what were the criteria used to decide who went where? Had all of those demons been truly evil people in their past lives? Or had they simply made mistakes? Were they victims of circumstance?

On Earth, Tucker had been a proponent of moral relativism in that he thought people were, by and large, a product of their environment. Some of that belief was based on his hope that all of society’s ills could be solved, if only they could get to the root of the problem. Nothing he’d seen in the Radiant Isles since being reborn had made him question his beliefs.

However, his experiences in Mal’araxis had shaken those beliefs to the very core. Moral relativism was an easy philosophy to which to cling, so long as you were safe in a civilized world and protected by laws and social mores. But after seeing what he had seen, Tucker’s entire worldview had shifted, and he now believed in the existence of true good and evil. Nothing else could explain that hellscape.

In any case, Tucker had two choices in front of him. Either he could keep moving forward and try to cross the savannah, or he could turn around and continue braving the forest. If he was being truthful, he didn’t really like either option, but stranded alone in the wilderness didn’t offer a lot of choices. So, he’d resolved to continue heading in one direction until he found a body of water, which he’d follow until he reached civilization. It was a good plan, mostly because he assumed that people in the new world were similar to those on Earth in that they were far more likely to settle near water.

Luckily, Tucker hadn’t had to worry too much about sustenance. He’d chanced upon a few ponds within the forest, and with his alchemy path, he could eat almost anything he foraged. Mushrooms, roots, and berries weren’t always tasty – in fact, some were outright disgusting – but they did provide him with enough energy to keep going.

Besides, it was that same ability to eat almost anything that had seen him through Mal’araxis, so even with the brief break he’d gotten upon returning to the Radiant Isles, it didn’t really take much of a shift to get back into that frame of mind.

Either way, Tucker’s path was clear. He’d already chosen to continue going in one direction. He just needed to work himself up to crossing that foreboding expanse of gently swaying grass.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself to his feet and strode forward. As he did, he summoned a pair of grenades, holding one in either hand. His spatial storage wasn’t as expansive or versatile as Zeke’s, but in it, he could hold a seemingly infinite amount of alchemical supplies. Luckily, that included his grenades.

Instead of going easy with more [Conflagration Grenades] or [Kinetic Grenades], he’d chosen to arm himself with his most potent weapons, which he’d dubbed [Death Bombs]. They had been made from materials he’d gathered in Mal’araxis combined with some ingredients he’d cultivated during his captivity in the Farindale Forest, and the combination of the corrosive demon realm and the deathly rot so prevalent in Abraham Micayne’s territory had produced something wholly terrifying. It had been of limited value in Mal’araxis, where all the denizens were adapted to the corruption in the atmosphere, but Tucker was confident that the [Death Bombs] would be very effective against anything he ran into going forward. He only wished he had more than a handful of the potent grenades, but his supplies had been limited. More, in the brutal demon realm, he hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to just sit and brew potions.

What he wouldn’t have given to be able to summon a tower, like Zeke.

He strode forward, trying to pay attention to everything at once. Tucker was a survivor – he always had been – but he could only count a few times when he’d ventured into the unknown. Usually, he was a planner who knew precisely what dangers awaited any excursion into a given territory. And as an alchemist, he’d had the means to prepare.

Now, though?

He felt like he’d been thrown into the deep end of a pool and told to learn how to swim. Either way, all he could do was try to stay afloat until he could get his footing. To that end, Tucker tried to stay ready for anything.

Luckily, aside from an increasing feeling of impending dread, he wasn’t immediately attacked. In fact, as he pushed forward, whipping his head back and forth at any errant sound, he didn’t encounter anything at all. The absence of any apparent threat was almost as unnerving as being attacked.

Still, he continued on, and slowly, the passing minutes turned to hours, and the morning hours crept forward into the afternoon. He didn’t relax, though. He couldn’t. Not with that sense of impending danger looming over him.

And then, just as night had begun to fall, Tucker stumbled free of the grassland, almost falling face first into a stream. As he collapsed into the water, drinking his fill, that sense of foreboding faded into the background. It was still there, but it seemed toothless. It was as if, now that he was free of the savannah, it couldn’t affect him anymore.

The clear difference, as much as anything else he’d experienced, told him that it wasn’t just his imagination playing tricks on him. Instead, it was something real. Something incredibly dangerous. And Tucker felt lucky to have survived.

After drinking as much as he could, Tucker rose to his feet and followed the stream to the west, eventually leaving the strange grassland far behind. Even so, that strangely ominous sense dogged his heels, pushing him forward into the night. It wasn’t the first time Tucker had eschewed rest in favor of the scant safety of constant motion, and he suspected it wouldn’t be the last.

In Mal’araxis, stopping in the wrong monster’s territory had almost gotten him killed in his sleep, and he had since vowed not to make that same mistake again.

So, he kept going even after dawn until, at last, he saw a sign of civilization. It was a simple stone bridge, which in turn, was connected to a road constructed of stone pavers. When Tucker stepped upon it and crossed the bridge, he was beset by a sudden influx of energy. It wasn’t much, but to his tired body, it was a welcome balm. Clearly, there was some sort of magic at play, but given that it seemed wholly beneficial, Tucker chose not to question it too much.

He sank to the ground, leaning against the stone railing of the bridge and looked around. The foreboding that had followed him from the savannah had lessened when he’d left the grassland behind, but it hadn’t truly left until the last hour or so. Now, it was entirely gone, which served to highlight the lack.

Something had been stalking him. He knew that right down to his bones. Why it hadn’t attacked, he had no idea. But he’d never felt more like prey in his entire life. It wasn’t until it was gone that Tucker truly realized how much it had driven him forward.

Now that he could finally relax, he sat back and let his tense muscles unkink. He closed his eyes, intending to rest for a couple of minutes before continuing on. However, a level of exhaustion that no trickle of magic could cure soon overwhelmed him, and he dozed off. Tucker didn’t awaken until the next morning, when he felt the sun warming his face.

“Stupid,” he muttered to himself as he shook his head. He knew better than to surrender to exhaustion in a foreign place. But something about being on the road had made him feel safe, like he’d been surrounded by tall walls and protected by a legion of experienced soldiers. And that feeling had allowed him to, for the first time since his ascension, relax.

And rest.

Tucker remained sitting there for a long time, summoning various alchemical ingredients from his storage and eating them. It wasn’t what he’d intended when he’d gathered them, but his hunger didn’t care much about that.

After a few more hours, during which he zoned out and ate a small feast of mushrooms, Tucker pushed himself back to his feet and chose to follow the road to the west. Chances were that civilization lay in either direction, but he’d chosen a westerly route since the beginning, and he didn’t see any reason to change things.

Like that he traveled for two more days until, at last, he found the civilization he’d hoped to find. Not in the form of a settlement, but rather, when he was overtaken by a caravan of horse drawn wagons.

Tucker couldn’t be sure of the distance, but the long convoy seemed to stretch for miles, with hundreds of wagons. It wasn’t until the lead wagon drew closer that alarm filled Tucker’s mind. For one, the wagons were far bigger than he’d initially suspected, with wheels taller than Tucker. But even that paled in comparison to his first sight of the creature sitting in the driver’s seat.

It was humanoid, but the similarities between it and a human being ended at having two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. It was covered in red scales, with thick, spiny ridges atop its head, and a long snout studded with sharp teeth.

Tucker was also surprised to see that what he’d taken for horses were also reptilian in nature and much larger than any equine he had ever seen.

For a moment, Tucker considered running. After all, the driver looked like a monster. However, Tucker kept his wits about him as he remembered that he was in an entirely new world, and it wouldn’t be all that surprising to find that it was populated by a variety of different races.

So, he stepped off the road and remained stationary until the caravan reached him. When it did, the lead wagon loomed over him. Tucker noticed that the beasts of burden were a bit thicker than horses and were built more like oxen – if oxen were the size of a diesel truck.

“Ho, there!” called the driver, slowing the wagon to a stop. The voice sounded male and oddly normal. For some reason, Tucker had expected it to come out in a hiss. “What’re you doin’ out here all by your lonesome, traveler?”

“Just a little lost, is all,” Tucker responded. “Any chance I can hitch a ride?”

“Sure thing!” the driver said, surprising Tucker. He’d expected an outright refusal. Or perhaps a demand for payment. But he wasn’t going to look a gift horse – or lizard, as it was – in the mouth. “Hop on up.”

Tucker found a ladder leading up to the driver’s seat, which was atop the enormous wagon. When he reached the lizard man, he was once again taken aback by the creature’s size. If he was shorter than nine feet tall, Tucker would have been incredibly surprised, and he wasn’t slim, either. In fact, he looked a bit pudgy, which made for a strange sight.

“Name’s Athis,” said the driver, holding out a clawed hand. “And this here’s the Koana Shipping Company.”

Tucker took the creature’s hand, which engulfed his own. “Tucker,” he introduced himself. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Not a problem,” Athis said. “Us travelers, we got to look out for each other, yeah?” The lizard man raised an eyeridge before continued, “Besides, you got an interestin’ look about you. Seems like you might have a story to tell, eh?”

“I guess I do,” said Tucker. “I guess I do.”

Then, as the caravan shuddered back into motion, Tucker started telling his story. He held plenty back, and he knew he probably should have concealed more. But paranoia and deception just wasn’t his style.

Still, he did keep his [Death Bombs] on the edge of being summoned. He wanted to be trusting, but he wasn’t stupid, after all.